Invisibility, See Invisibility, Nondetection...

[Variable Arcana]

Does the combination of Invisibility with Nondetection defeat See Invisibility?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Nondetection does not offer a blanket protection against Divination spells.
It only protects against the types mentioned in the spell description and See Invisibility is not among them.


The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by divination spells such as clairaudience/clairvoyance, locate object, and detect spells. Nondetection also prevents location by such magic items as crystal balls.

[Variable Arcana]

The sentence you've quoted is the one that confuses me. Specifically, the words "such as" can have different meanings ranging from (as you've read it) "limited to precisely the following types:" through "including, among others," to "for example".

I have trouble reading the sentence as limited the protection to precisely the spells listed and no others for a few reasons:

1) The very next sentence begins: "If a divination is attempted against the warded creature..." It doesn't say, "If *such* a divination..." as I would expect it to if the list in the previous sentence was meant to be exhaustive rather than illustrative.

2) The fact that it protects against crystal balls very, very strongly implies that it protects against the spell "scrying" which is the basis of the crystal ball, and yet is not a spell included in the list.

I tried working this from the other direction -- obviously Nondetection and a dark room shouldn't protect you from being seen by a mage using the spell "Darkvision". However, the spell Darkvision is explicitly not a divination, but rather a transmutation.

So what about Arcane Sight? I'd assume that nondetection would prevent a wizard with Arcane Sight from perceiving the magical aura around someone or something...

At that point, I gave up and thought I'd pass on the question to these boards, to see what you might think.

[moikk]

the words "such as" will never limit to the specific spells listed. "Such as" implies that they are examples of divination spells. If we apply standard English rules, the part of the sentance that follows "such as" is just listing examples and therefore can be removed from the sentance without changing the meaning of the sentance. In which case, the sentenace would become:

"The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by divination spells. Nondetection also prevents location by such magic items as crystal balls."

The way I read it, it would protect from all divination spells and a few are listed in the "such as" part of the sentance. If Non-detection only applied to specific divination spells, I would think they would have listed the specific spells or phased it differently...

Something like:

The warded creature or object becomes difficult to detect by certain types of divination spells, such as detect spells."

But then that is still a little vague with attempting to figure out which types of divination spells apply and which don't.

However, I don't believe that the Invisibility and Nondetection combo would complete defeat a see invisibility spell. I believe that if you have that combo cast on yourself and you walk into a room where someone has the see invisibility spell active, that one person will nullify the effect of the invisiblity spell active on you. At that point, they automatically roll the caster level check to see if they can defeat the nondetection.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The sentence you've quoted is the one that confuses me. Specifically, the words "such as" can have different meanings ranging from (as you've read it) "limited to precisely the following types:" through "including, among others," to "for example".

I did not read it as "Divination spells limited to ..." but rather like "Divination spells with similar characteristics to ...".

There is a difference between spells that confer upon you the ability to perceive things and the spell that are actively "searching" or targeting someone.



Neither True Seeing or See Invisibility requires that you actively target the creature or object warded by Nondetection or the area where it is located.


If a divination is attempted against the warded creature or item, the caster of the divination must succeed on a caster level check...

[moikk]

Well, I can see that interpretation of the effect... but some might believe that see invisiblity and true seeing are just an automatic divination attempt against the warded creature.

In this case, I believe it would be a DM decision upon how he reads the spell. \

but in any case, I believe the see invisiblity would negate the invisiblity spell... but the creature is still allowed the benifit of the non-detection. However, at that point, the character would be visible to the person with true seeing or see invisiblity. And no where in the non-detection description does it say that it hides the person from visible sight. Therefore, I now believe that the warded creature would be completely visible and detectable to the vision of a person under the effect of see invisiblity.

[Indon]

For me, Nondetection is an anti-scrying spell in regards to its' intent. Nondetection would prevent you from scrying on someone who is invisible, regardless of if you had see invisibility cast or not.

See invisibility is not scrying; it is itself a specific anti-illusion magic.